


Mermaid Space Detective Agency, LLP

by Superstition_hockey



Series: Pee-Wee League [13]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, Shell companies, Uncle Grant babysits
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-10
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-17 02:06:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29342535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Superstition_hockey/pseuds/Superstition_hockey
Summary: Grant didn't really like children. He didn't dislike them, exactly --he certainly didn't hate them or think other people shouldn't have them -- but he just wasn't a kid person.
Series: Pee-Wee League [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1133492
Comments: 100
Kudos: 160





	Mermaid Space Detective Agency, LLP

Grant didn't really like children. He didn't _dislike_ them, exactly --he certainly didn't hate them or think other people shouldn't have them -- but he just wasn't a kid person. He didn't know how to talk to them. They were either infants and just loud and... gooey, or they were small, loud, socially awkward non-adults. Grant had learned to deal with his own social anxiety. Years of therapy and learning to _fake it_ meant the business world thought he was a cool, unflappable, imminently poised shark, who could work a room or run a negotiation with the best of them. 

Watching a moderately new human learn what was and wasn't appropriate to talk about in front of guests made him want to go take an Ativan and practice breathing exercises in a dim, quiet room. 

And after a certain age, children were continuously asking if you would play with them. Grant always wanted to say he'd never exactly gotten the hang of playing with children when _he_ was a child. He hadn't the faintest notion how to start now. Instead, he always says, "No, thank you, I'm going to sit here with my coffee and talk a little more with your fathers."

The Chantal children, at least, mostly only ever wanted to play hockey, and knowing that Grant couldn't skate, never asked if he wanted to play hockey. They were always terribly careful about it, like it would be cruel to remind him he couldn't play the Greatest Game on Earth, so best not to bring it up in front of him. It was adorable. Just a little. And it meant the only time they ever asked him to join them was on the beach, at which point he could plead a genetic disposition to skin cancer. And, once again, be rewarded with looks of sympathetic pity, and sometimes an ice cream for having the bad luck to be born so tragically lacking in melanin.

Which is all to say that he wasn't quite sure what got into him, when he said, "Luc, please, dont worry about it, I can watch her for the afternoon." 

Bells Teixeira, two weeks shy of her sixth birthday, eyes him suspiciously, like she knew he had temporarily taken leave of his senses. 

"What? No, Grant, I know that's not your thing. You've got," Luc waves his hand vaguely, "business… things. I know you're busy. I'll figure something out."

The relentlessly labyrinthine complexities of Luc's childcare situation always seemed to Grant like something that would require the scheduling precision of an air traffic controller, but he does gather that Oliver is in Moncton for the week with Hank and Katya, at a summer hockey camp. That Crash has the baby, Mavericks, in Florianopolis with her family. That Svetlana and Anthony's two girls are away at their own sleep away summer camp in the Welsh wilderness with the Girl Guides, and that one of Svetlana's adoptive fathers was quite ill, and in hospital. And so Luc had come to London to take some stress off of her, and also spend time with Sasha and be there with him as he entered negotiations on a contract renewal with Nike, armed as Luc was with attorneys, agents, and a lifetime experience in the world of professional sports. 

Unfortunately they'd just discovered that the majority of the afternoon activities would take place outside on a tennis court and Bells, recovering from a strep throat infection, was currently taking antibiotics that made her extremely sun-sensitive.

"Don't worry about it," Luc continues on, "I'll just call Stick. He can - oh, crisse, he's got that panel thing this afternoon."

Sasha wraps a protective arm around Bells. "What is she going to do in a fortnight when we're all in the sun in Madeira?"

“Well, hopefully the antibiotics will be out of her system by them,” Luc sighs. 

Which is all to lead up to how Grant returns to his London office after lunch, with Bells gripping his hand, a tiny purple backpack over her shoulders. 

They take the private elevator that goes up to Grant’s office on the top floor directly, and Grant situates her at a coffee table with crayons and a coloring book and has just settled down to look at some emails when his PA, Keres, comes in. She stops half way across the room to Grant’s desk, blinks a few times and says, “um…. Hello… sir. I… um….” 

“Keres,” Grant says, “This is Bells, my niece. Bells, this is Keres, my assistant. I'm babysitting today.” 

“Bonjour-Hi,” Bells says absently, not looking up from her coloring. 

“Oh,” Keres says, flummoxed, and then, “Does she... want a snack?”

“We just had lunch, but thank you.” 

“Oh, of course. Um… well, here’s… the Franklin documents you wanted.”

“Thank you, Keres.” 

Coloring lasts an entire fifteen minutes. Grant has just had time to sink into reading through the Franklin contract when there is, suddenly, a small person climbing into his lap. 

“Excuse me,” he says, sitting back, bewildered and wishing children had a concept of personal space. 

“What are you doing?” Bells asks in French, looking at his stack of documents. 

“I’m buying a company this week, so I’m looking over a few things,” Grant answers in the same language. He has no understanding of what kind of structure Luc and Oliver use for teaching their children to speak, or for differentiating what language they’re using, in a multilingual house. Luc had seemed remarkably blasé about, and just said, when Grant had asked when Henri was smaller, “Oh, they’ll pick them all up eventually. Kid brains are really good at language, we just speak whatever." And so Grant had decided to just follow his lead, and speaks in whatever language they address him, if he can. 

“What does it do?” Bells asks him, doggedly inquisitive. 

“The company?”

“Yes.” 

“It… well, it’s complicated. I mostly bought it to handle the finances for another company that manages a shell company that…” Grant does know that Luc is always in the habit of explaining things to their children. Honestly, openly, with as much technical detail as they care to press for. “We don’t do ‘because I said so’ or ‘because that’s the way it is’ in this house,” Luc had told him once, “and I don’t ever lie to them.” 

“It sells shells? I like shells. I have a box at home that I keep all my favorite ones in.” 

“Um… that’s… very nice. I like shells, too, but that’s not quite what a shell company does.” 

“Do you _make_ shells?”

“No…” Grant says and well, education is _important_ so he says, “It’s not that type of shells; it’s more like… you know the matryoshka dolls? Does your uncle Buddy have one of those?”

“Uncle Yasha.” Bells nods. “Little dolls inside each other. They keep it on the fire place thing.” 

“The mantle. Yes, that’s… a shell company is a company you put around another company and then you stack them all inside each other, like the dolls.” 

“Oh!” Bells looks up. “Neat! Why?” 

“Lots… of reasons…” Grants hedges. “Sometimes it’s nice… for people to see one name and not the other, or for people to not know that one company and another company are actually owned by the same company.”

“Like super secrets???” Bells asks, bouncing up and leaning to look more closely at his laptop, “I like super secrets, sometimes Katya still plays Super Secret Space Mermaid Detective Agency with me and Sofi.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes. In space.” 

“Well that sounds very remarkable.”

“Yeah. Do you like playing Super Secret Space Mermaid Detective Agency?”

“I can’t say that I’ve ever tried.” 

“I can show you how.”

“Maybe later; right now I have to go over some clauses in the sales contract. I’m a little old fashioned, it’s easier for me to read closely and catch any irregularities on paper than on a screen.” 

“Irregularities?” 

“Never sign anything unless you’ve read the whole thing. Even if your lawyers say they’ve already gone through it.” 

“Hmmmm.” Bells seems dubious. Grant has a moment of deep concern. Not everyone can be born with Luc’s unswerving good luck in choosing professional staff. The fact that Grant is 100% sure Luc Chantal has never read a damn thing he’s signed in his life used to keep Grant up at night, until he and Ms. Nunez reached an accord. Now, Grant reads things, and he knows and trusts that Megan does as well. 

“It’s really important,” Grant adds. 

“Why?”

“Because when you sign something, you agree to something; if you don’t read what you’re signing, you don’t know what you’re agreeing to. You could think you’re agreeing to getting an allowance and really you’re agreeing to eating cabbage every day.” 

“I only like cabbage when it’s in Uncle Alex's soup.” 

“Would you want to eat it every day?”

“No...”

“So you better read everything you sign, so that you don’t accidentally wind up agreeing to it. Okay?” 

“Okay.” 

“Do you promise?”

“Pinky swear!”

“I don’t do pinky swears, I’m afraid. We’ll have to shake on it.” 

“Do I have to cut my hand?”

“What.”

“You know, where you cut your hand and then I cut my hand and we shake…”

“Good God. No. Bells. An agreement does not need to involve the possibility of bloodborne illness to be binding. Even a handshake deal.” 

“That’s not what Hank says. But we could just spit.”

Grant sighs. He takes his glasses off and rubs his temples for a second. Then he puts them back on and says, “We are going to shake hands and that will be sufficient.” 

They shake. Grant says, “No, squeeze my hand a little firmer when you shake. Okay, good job, but stop. So, when you shake someone’s hand, you shake from your elbow, like this, not from your shoulder, like this.”

Bells giggles as he pretends to shake her hand terribly. 

“And a handshake should only last around three seconds, see we’re shaking our hands, and we’re moving our arm, one, two and we’re done. Two, maybe three up and downs, okay? No more. Okay, let’s try again.” 

They practice handshakes for a few more minutes and then Bells gets bored and wants to only do silly ones and then she dissolves into a fit of giggles and then Keres comes in with Grant’s afternoon coffee and has a glass of milk for Bells with her, too, and Grant realizes an hour has gone by and he has not read any more of the Franklin documents. 

“Okay, quiet time,” he says but Bells doesn’t move off his lap and go back to her coloring books. She seems content to click around on spider solitaire on his laptop while he reads the paper documents, though. 

She lasts an entire 25 minutes before she finally starts wriggling, and then asks, “Uncle Yasha' doll is missing the littlest doll, so we hide things in it instead. Sometimes a piece of candy. Sometimes a super old coin and we pretend it's pirate treasure. Do you put treasures inside your littlest company?” 

Oh. Clever, _clever_ girl. “Sometimes,” Grant admits.

“What kind? Do you have _real_ pirate treasure?”

“Unfortunately, no. Sometimes the other little company is the treasure.” 

“Hmmm. Can I have a shell company? I’m good at secrets and I like treasure.” 

Grant…. Grant pauses. He almost laughs at the ridiculousness of it and then, a sudden urge hits him. Why not? 

“Sure,” he says and then reaches around her to type into the laptop.. “Making a company and registering it is easy. We just have to fill out some paperwork. I haven’t actually done this myself in a long time, so it will be kind of fun. Let’s see, first we have to start with where. Where do you want your company to be registered? It can be anywhere you like. New York, London, Los Angeles, Quebec, Toronto, Sydney. Singapore. The Seychelles….”

“Oh! I like the Seychelles; we went there last summer and I found three pink shells and a snail.” 

“Okay, Seychelles it is.” He goes to their business site and finds the form for registering a new business, “And now, what would you like to name your company?”

“Super Secret Mermaid Space Detective Agency.” 

“Hmmm…. A little long.” 

"Space pony!" 

"Hmmm…. How about AstraEqua? Sounds fancier?"

“That's pretty."

"Good. Now, what type of company? You can make an LLP, an LLLC, there are corporations, partnerships...”

“What’s the difference?” 

“Well, a LLP has…” Grant pauses. Actually. He picks up his phone. “Keres, that new promotion this morning, what was his name?”

“Craig Clarke.” 

“Right. Send him up please.” 

Clarke makes it up to the office in two minutes and 53 seconds. In the meantime, Grant plays around designing the font for AstraEqua. It is fun. He can’t remember the last time he was this hands on in making a company. 

“Um, you called for me, sir?”

Oh, poor thing. He looks terrified. “Yes, Clarke. Are you familiar with the concept that if you can’t explain something to a six year old, you don’t understand it well enough?”

“Errr… Yes. Sir.” Clarke’s eyes jerk over, like he only just now realized that there is a child in the office as well. 

“Well. Clarke. This is Bells, my niece. She turns six in a fortnight. I’d like you to explain to her the difference between the seven types of business structures.” 

That evening, Grant meets Luc and Sasha outside the tennis facility and Bells goes running to jump into Luc’s arms. 

“Papa! I learned a bunch! I learned how to do handshakes and what a shell company is.” 

“Dude,” Luc groans, hefting Bells up onto his hip and staring at Grant, “we go see her Mom in two weeks. I can’t bring her back to Crash knowing _bad words_ like that, come on.” 

"Craig taught me the most common types of business models and I picked which one is best to hide off-shore investments in!"

Luc closes his eyes. "Crisse, Grant."

"Merely as a thought exercise, of course. She's an extremely bright child. And she was no trouble. If you need someone to watch her again tomorrow…"

"And what, then she'll come home telling me how to launder money?"

"I have never once _laundered money_ , Luc, all my business dealings are completely legal and 100% ethical."

Luc gives him a look Grant secretly calls "Disappointed Captain."

"100% legal and 95… 93% ethical," he amends, graciously, "from certain ethical perspectives." 

Luc sighs. "I do need someone to watch her, and I appreciate it. But no shady corporate mergers." 

"I would never." 

"No," he wiggles his free hand, "no, whatever, bank stuff. No Ayn Rand or whoever the fuck. No trickle down economics bullshit, okay?"

Well. Honestly. Grant would never. If he's honest, his feelings are a little hurt. "Luc. You wound me. My company was on Forbes top five best companies to work for. I pay a living wage to all my employees. They're allowed to _unionize_." 

Honestly, Luc, who had once gleefully laughed along when his children invented a song that was just a complex series of fart jokes in different languages, and regularly curses in three different languages in front of his children, is being squeamish about a child hearing _sound business strategy_????

"Oh, they're _allowed_??" Luc huffs, "and _which_ company?"

"A poor choice of words," Grant edits, quickly, not sure why he's so worried Luc won't let him babysit again tomorrow. "Obviously all of them are allowed, not by me, but by their inherent and intrinsic human rights, and the laws of their country, through which they self govern in a healthy and thriving democracy. I merely meant that it's not discouraged within company culture." 

"Uncle Grant has a bunch of companies!" Bells chooses now to speak up at the exact same time. "Like Uncle Yasha's matroyshka dolls!"

"Calisse," Luc sighs, and then, "we'll talk about it after dinner, come on, dude, you might as well eat with us. Also. Bro, you might want to practice that speech so you sound a little less like a visiting alien trying to convince humans he'll be a benevolent overlord." 

"Someone's husband writes a novel about spaceships and all of a sudden everyone is an expert on intergalactic politics," Grant sniffs.

**Author's Note:**

> As with all my fics - thanks to Dangercupcake for fixing my commas. Please don't post on Goodreads, and I'm on Tumblr at superstitionhockey


End file.
